Direct Withdrawl

A young girl in dark purple, almost black clothes with shoulder-length black hair walks into the Ominuri Bank of Tokyo - one of Tokyo's more upscale banks, that caters to a... richer clientelle, rather than a regular community.

She's wearing a grey beret on her head, and a black-and-white school uniform - not a color scheme used by any of the schools. She keeps her head low as she walks in, and is stopped by the security guard.

"Are you lost?" he questions her kindly. And then she looks up. And she has no face, just a blank space. Pulling her hands out of her pockets, a series of small, purple-black bead-like objects bounce across the floor. The security guard has just enough time to recoil in shock before the beads crack open, releasing a storm of negative energy through the bank. Guards, Employees, and customers alike faint from the sudden surge of magical power, unable to come to terms with it.

That was the signal, and a group of more faceless girls - carrying strange, magitech rifles or swords - follows in. And then a bunch of strange, Dark-Energy powered metallic robots carrying what look for all the world like tommyguns follow too - Eclipse's guard, not seen in some time. Perhaps leftovers. And finally, Riventon. "Crack the vault, crack the boxes. You know what we're here for. No delays!" he calls, as a circle of dark blue runes starts to be magically etched into the tile beneath him.

Part time jobs are fun! Or at least that's what they told Taiko when they bugged her into taking a job. Sadly, that was a lie. Moreso than usual. Money is the root of all annoyance.

They told her that having money was fun, too. Yet, all she sees when she looks at the faces of the rich people here is stress, frustration, and impatience. Taiko hated it. They cared too much.

Taiko was hired as a courier for one of Ominuri's clientele, and she was here largely to deliver messages. It's the most ridiculous of coincidences that she's in this exact building, at this exact time, when the blast of negative energy is unleashed upon the building. Taiko feels the full force of it, gnashing her teeth as she drops to one knee, and then the floor. She's not knocked out, but that wasn't the kind of hit she wanted to take out of henshin.

Her eyes watch the feet of the incoming goons as they surge into the room, and the moment she thinks that no one's looking at her directly she tucks in her legs and hides behind a desk.

She doesn't care about the money. It's not her money. Yet she's getting caught up in something that she wants no part in, and escape doesn't exactly seem easy.

Hoshi had just come to pick up her allowance, and was about to leave when the chaos starts and it becomes abundantly clear what kind of shenanigans are happening. She rushes into a nearby alley and soon enough Prism Princess Yellow is on the scene. There's one thing she agrees with Riventon on, she knows what she's here for, so there better be no delays.

She could of course go for the mooks, arguably that would even be prudent. But she has some anger to work off from recent fights with a friend, and she knows this guy. So, immediately she flings forth a series of stars, full of purifying energy, pulsing tiny waves of purification as they whizz about, each of them trying to catch Riventon's attention by flying around his head and take it away from anything more likely to actually hurt him.

"Rivenjerk, stop that right now." She demands, anger clear in her voice.

Another day. Another round of patrolling the city and gathering intelligence on the Raskoph Conglomerate. It's an uphill journey, that's for certain. But Stahlritter keeps carrying on.

It's only by coincidence that the Knight happened to be moving through the articular district of Tokyo where the bank is located-- swinging high above the streets past buildings with magic-created chains acting as grapple lines.

Close enough that Kriegsfauste manages to detect an application of energy within the bank and report it to him, in turn.

Anyone who knows Stahlritter only tangentially - or the teenaged boy behind the helmet anyhow - might be surprised by the fact that his entry isn't one of kicking open doors or punching a hole into the wall and raining hell down upon whoever is on the other side. Rather, his approach is a quiet one. Mana output kept purposefully to the minimum in an effort to lower the chances of being detected by another Device user, just in case, and carefully cutting his way in through one of the large, arched windows lining the lobby of the bank. The unfortunate part of that is, however quiet cutting through the glass might have been with an application of mana, and however quick he might have been about it to avoid actaully being seen coming in-- the fact remains that there's a huge chunk of glass very distinctly *no longer there*. Someone's probably bound to notice.

But for the time being, the armored Knight framed in the dark coat keeps to the higher ground, moving from awnings and rafterrs with the help of the chains he uses for movement outside, as well. Observing, at first. Gathering information.

They're not my parents' lot, are they? he internally decides, eventually, while his golden visor sweeps through the crowds of robotic thugs and magic-constructed little girls.

I suppose I shouldn't assume. Suppose it doesn't matter either way. ... Let's see. They're not human, so I doubt taking out even a single one quietly is going to happen. But...

And cue stars flying about around the tall person who seems to be more or less in charge.

... Suppose that was going to happen sooner or later. No time for doubts now!

And the instant Riventon turns? From above, the dark, armored figure of Stahrlitter falls down, black longcoat fluttering about behind him. Landing down upon one of the faceless girls, armored boots first with a loud THUD of a body slamming in between the tiled floor and a six-foot knight.

In an instant of smoothly flowing motion, a hand bearing a large, steel gauntlet reaches down to grasp the magical rifle beared by the Faceless he mercilessly stomped down upon, and as he springs up from his crouched landing posture, he spins around, with the rifle held by the barrel, and sends it flying towards Riventon.

<SPANNSTUCK>

Except, the rifle takes on, with the spell trigger, a red glow, and it's velocity speeds up *drastically*, like a gauss projectile launched out.

Sitting in one of those little side offices with a private banker, Hokuto is dealing with some of her family's investment business. She's dressed for business, in an elegant black skirt-suit with a royal blue silk blouse, the better for such a young woman to make a good impression on the rather conservative bankers. She isn't in a position to hear or see any of Riventon's toys arriving, so she doesn't react at first at all.

"Excuse me for a moment," she tells the banker, and sets her sheaf of paper on the desk while she gets up to head out. "Something seems to be wrong out there." The man is surprised, of course, but she ignores it as she turns to see what's going on in the main area...

Just in time for Stahlritter to crash through the roof. Well. That was.... helpful.

She flicks a set of ofuda from a sleeve and charges them with a thought. "Excuse me," she calls out as she tosses them at the nearest Faceless, the papers set to adhere to their heads and discharge the magic animating them. "Some of us are trying to do business here."

Yuzuki Amemori had been awake, about and back in in the city after an extended trip out to the countryside for a show. Stepping into the doorway, she sees the mess of things happening. Turns on her heels and walks right out. She hasn't had to do this in a while. Looking left, right, then back she steps into the side alley to make her change. There's some muttered complaining, some sense of being out of practice, the works.

When she reappears around the corner, stepping into the door, she's just in time for a big armored knight sort to smash through the ceiling. She calls out, "Really?" though she'd admit, it's a good entrance at least!

Lifting her flintlock, she fires a magically enfused dart with, complete with the smoke and acrid smell of something burning at least. "Come on over here! Line up please, let's make it quick!" What, it's a bunch of small things, they're easy right?

Riventon isn't even surprised that people showed up - he was doing it now in the hopes that LESS people showed up, but well... He was loud. Is loud. Isn't very well liked. And he needs what's hidden here, and what's not-so-hidden.

The stars whiz towards him, but he counters them with orbs of energy. "Oh good, a Prism Keeper. Don't you have a resteraunt ball pit to play..." and he's cut off by the mach-five thrown rifle, having to put up a barrier to guard against it. The barrier and rifle shatter at the same time.

"Oh, this must be the babysitter." he says to Stahlritter. "That's a nice device you have but I'm sure it's utterly wasted in your hands."

The Faceless girls, with the magical ofuda, begin to dissolve into liquid Dark Energy. This doesn't help matters as Riventon, like a conductor at an orchestra, raises a hand and the liquid-goo forms into a single shadow creature with glowing red eyes and charges Hokuto. "Yes, some of us are. You, on the other hand, are annoying."

Riventon's gauntlet detaches two orbs which begin to orbit him, firing smaller blasts of Dark Energy of their own at the Keeper and Stahlritter. At that time, Yuzuki's flintlock roars from the front of the room, and cuts down one of the sword wielding girls - but her body melts down and rejoins the entity attacking Hokuto with dark claws.

"Alright time to FOLLOW THE PLAN." Riventon shouts. The Faceless girls turn from the work and begin to attack the heroes standing against him, firing beam and swinging blade. Eclipses' gangster-robots keep heading for the main vault and taking dark-energy cutting torches to the safety deposit boxes.

"The restaurant ball pit visit is cancelled on account of immature jerks who decided to rob a bank." Yellow answers Riventon immediately, and ducks beneath the blasts of dark energy as she flies towards him with speed, she seems to be going for a full on tackle, except she's angled weird for that, face and chest towards him rather than her shoulders.

The reason quickly becomes clear as she attempts to wrap her arms around him for a hug. Scepter pointed straight at his head if she can manage it, glowing dangerously with purifying energy, "But I understand. Your mommy and daddy didn't love you, and you never got to be a child. That's why you're playing at being someone who matters more than the dust I kick of my feet when I enter the house. I understand."

Taiko hides behind her chosen desk, ducking into a little ball with her hands clasped over her head. Everything is loud and noisy and dangerous and threatening and Taiko is not really having a good time here. She knows that she could probably henshin and give herself a much better chance of handling herself but... she isn't exactly a heroine and that would just invite more attention onto her.

Cautiously, she peeks past the edge of the desk, watching the faceless mooks fight against no less than four magical defenders, and there's some prettyboy in a labcoat directing the attackers. Great. She'd be annoyed and angry if she wasn't concerned about her own health.

She didn't get it. She hated it. She watched the scene unfold with cold blue eyes until she sees blades and beams and darkness everywhere and decides to just hide for a bit longer.

This little desk isn't going to last long and she knows it. There's a hole in the glass. Maybe she could just...

She peeks out again to see if it's okay, and then hoping that most everyone else is distracted she decides to bolt for the lobby. She's about halfway there before someone says, 'Your mommy and daddy didn't love you' and she stops in her tracks.

That's how it came to pass that Taiko Tsume is currently glaring at Prism Princess Yellow with a twitching eye, completely out of henshin and just standing in the middle of the room.

. o O (Hey! Cool! Evil says I'm annoying!). Hokuto grins, widely, and throws an ofuda directly at Riventon to keep him distracted... then there's a great big shadow-thing coming after her with claws. Oops.

Time to dodge. And dodge some more. And really try hard not to get her nice suit ripped up by evil claws. She scoops up a garbage can and tosses it in the creature's way, only to see it shredded in moments by those claws. a chair follows it, gaining her a moment's grace to henshin and replace that fragile suit with her more familiar miko's outfit.

"There we go," she finally says, producing a peachwood bokken from behind her and tossing an ofuda onto it - upon which the paper gloms itself onto the wooden blade, bursts into flame, and then the entire blade seems to glow white with energy.

Now she's ready to actually fight, rather than just dodge, using the glowing blade to parry claw-strikes as she circles around the bank, drawing the creature away from the officials she'd been dealing with (and the paperwork she'd just signed).

If a visor could shift into a squint, Stahlritter's would squint SO HARD at Riventon's shield shattering his improvised projectile.

Right as he brings up his own hand and summons up red, triangular runes of Belkan make to form a shield to deflect the beam of energy sent to him.

"You must be the one they call Riventon, then," a deep, unnaturally booming voice comes from within the Knight's helmet. "You will have to excuse me for skipping the rest of the introductions."

THere's a lot happening, then. A lot to take in. Three others fighting around him. One of them charging straight for Riventon. Couple Faceless charging for himself too, in all likelihood. Robots continuing with the bank robbery. He needs to prioritize. Right then, it's between assaulting Riventon to make sure the KEeper's charge doesn't backfire, and interfering with the robbery proper.

The instant Hokuto throws an Ofuda makes the decision for him, though. He does kick at the floor to break a couple tiles apart, sending several flying towards Riventon -- albeit only a few of them are actually enhanced by the Object Acceleration magic he employed earlier, while one of the more naturally bouncing ones... has been imbued with a rune on the side that ends up pressing against the floor as it lands right by Riventon's feet. What is that, a trap?

In the next instant, the Knight is leaping up high off into the air and past the Boss Man of the lot-- besides the little hidden present he left behind, he seems confident enough the others can handle the other man.

Instead, he comes landing down again besides a pair of the gangster-droids of Eclipse at work-- and immediately grabs one of them by the back of the head into one of his massive gauntlets and SMASHES the thing face-first into the wall lined with lockboxes. Ow.

Hakuomaru tilts her head, lets out a disgusted sound as the creature melts, then reforms. "Look, just stay down, it's better for everyone involved. She holsters the heavy wooden bludgeon and leans forward, reaching over her shoulder to draw the rather large sword more or less improversationally strapped to her back. She still has to have words with a certain dead samurai about his choice in gear and their options, but when you're dealing wtih a crowd, sometimes something like a giant slab of magic infused samurai sword is helpful.

She hefts the sword and with a minor adjustment, begins to run forward towards Riventon and whatever happens to be in the way. Sword hefted behind her, she slides to a stop, using the momentum in a wide arced swing, which with a shift of her grip, a twist of her wrists and a faith in her armor, turns into an all out overhead smash leaving her side exposed, armor only there. The impact with the ground (Or anything near it) would feel a magically enforced blow with shards of earth shattering away from the blade. Maybe even a tiny crater and some cracks if it did hit the ground.

It's about then, as she tries to pull the sword back and away, that she sees Taiko out of the corner of her eye, just standing there. Turning her focus away she calls out, "Get out, run." while trying to put herself between the mass of monsters, lasers and sharp bits and the girl. This is of course trying to ignore the gouges in her armor, the few knicks, scratches and even a proper gouge from something she didn't duck fast enough. She heals fast though, it's fine. And it's totally not just channeling the reckless disregard of her former life or anything!

So Haruna Kurosawa is on her way to the bank with one of those big deposit bags because do you really think she keeps all of Gullwing Cafe's money in a big comical safe in the back all the time!? Of course not! You put it in the bank where it's all safe and sound!

Haruna steps through the door into.... Chaos. This isn't safe! THIS ISN'T SAFE AT ALL!

She shoves the bag into her purse and reverses herself out of the bank in an awkward manner by backing out. She'll make a run to an alley to transform. Getting out her PrettyChange!Mirror and then---

CURE GULL arrives fashionably late to this specific mess.

She is super familiar with those robo goons. (She still works at WPS afterall.) The other ones that...kind of look like weird magical girls look vaguely familiar. And then there's...

Riventon. Who apparently got rid of that raven feathery motif she remembers seeing him in last time. ALSO OH LOOK IT'S YUZUKI! Well Hakumaru. She does what she does best. She leaps into the fray and tries to blindside one of the weird dark clone magical girls as she yells out.

"HEY RIVENTON. NOT EVERYTHING BELONGS TO YOU." she screams out.

She sees a girl sort of out of the corner of her eye but Hakumaru seems to give advice before she can. No use just screaming at a bystander from various sources.

There's a lot going on in the chaos of the robbery at hand, but for Riventon, there's not much besides Yellow's words in his head. She might not want to be hugging him, not for much longer, as Dark Energy suddenly flows through the air and into him...

<EXPLOSION!> Axion calls out, before for once the phrase matches the action as a Dark Energy Cartridge shudders through Riventon and a wave of noxious foul energy surges outward.

"That may be true, but your parents won't even know to MOURN you when I'm done scattering your peices to the winds!" Riventon shouted. To a ten year old girl. He's rather upset.

Haruna and Hakumaru make work of some of the Faceless mahou, but there's... just so many of them. Oh. They're coming from the backroom. There must be a portal or something here. And every time they slay some, they form up into shadows, either returning to attack or joining the steadily growing hulking thing that's matching claw with blade of Hokuto - but with each death the liquid-hate thing might grow bigger.

And Stahlritter, going after the goons in the back, smashes one clean into a nonsensical pile of electronics and Dark Energy smoke - they're not really robots, they just look like they are. Or at least, are MOSTLY animated by Dark Energy. And they also have guns, which fire purple energy bullets all over the room trying to hit Stahritter. They're not accurate but there's a ton of them!

Hakuomaru is telling Taiko to get out, and her first instinct is to say, 'I know that already!', but she holds her tongue. She's glaring at the back of Prism Princess Yellow's head for a moment, but her strong desire to get away from all of this mess wins out and she turns to leave the way Cure Gull came in, bolting towards the exit in the hopes of leaving this mess behind her.

No one seems to be attacking her directly, and one of the magical girls is even covering her escape, so Taiko makes it out of the bank. She's probably the only civilian to escape that room, which is noteworthy if anyone thinks to note it, but at the same time they all have their own distractions.

Once Taiko is away from the bank, her sprint becomes a run, her run a jog, and her jog becomes a walk before she finally finds a bench to sit at.

She takes her cell phone out of a purse and unlocks it. Now, a sensible person in her shoes might take this chance to call the police. It would be a useless gesture to be sure, but it's what a normal person might do. What Taiko does instead is call HR at her employer and say, "I quit." Immediate hang up. No further explanation given.

Taiko sits on her bench, legs and arms crossed, looking grumpy and sour. Yellow's comment to Riventon echos in her head, gnawing at her. It wasn't said to her directly, but... it's still hurtful. It's still saying that Taiko's family situation is mockable, that it's something to be laughed it. Taiko tells herself not to care, to embrace the cold in her heart... but her rage burns too brightly.

What reappears at the entrance of the bank is not Taiko Tsume, as far as anyone knows, but a blizzard. A very unseasonal blizzard, furious white bitter cold obscuring the view outside entirely. The outer windows of the bank freeze, then shatter, and from the impenetrable white storm outside emerges a solitary figure of a yuki-onna.

She raises her outstretched hand, fingers spread apart. She whispers, but the wind carries and amplifies her words as if they had been spoken by a wailing chorus. "Do you think you're funny?"

It's hard to tell who she's talking to. With everyone so closely clustered together, it could be either Riventon or Prism Princess Yellow, or it could just be the magical crowd in its entirety. Snow Woman Mou Fubuki is walking into the bank, a carpet of ice preceding her steps, though her walk is such a steady and still motion that she looks like she might very well be gliding.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm sure mom will be glad to see me again once I'm in heaven." Yellow answers Riventon with the same tone, sending that beam of concentrated yellow she'd been preparing before she backs off, only for a blizzard to arrive and complicate the matter entirely. She glances somewhat nervously at the the icicle and contemplates the question, before answering truthfully. "No, I don't think making fun of people's troubles is particularly funny. It's mean and it's not very nice, but this guy is a jerk and he's tried to kill my friends and thinks mocking my age is funny, so I just returned the favour."

A part of Stahlritter is feeling bad about leaving everyone else with Riventon and the giant shadow monster. Really, really bad. But, someone has to deal with this part, too, surely.

So if nothing else, he will just have to try to deal with it as fast as possible so he can go back.

He meets the initial barrage of supressive fire from the dozens of tommyguns with a shield held up by one gauntlet, while his other hand goes down to grab a large handful of electronics pieces left behind from the goon he already smashed-- and tosses them out forward, dozens of small tiny metallic pieces.

<SPANNSTUCK>

With the spell, the end result is akin to a gauss-shotgun fired through the room, every piece of metallic shrapnel sent out in a spreading cone of red-tracered projectiles that cut into the walls, through several goons and fills the room and hallway with dust.

And through the clouds of dust, the Steel Knight chases through the remaining 'gangsters'. Speeding from one point to another with rapid, lightning-fast motion, interspersed with devastating punches with his powered gauntlets launched into goon after goon, shattering them into further messes of smoke and electronics, one after the other.

"Heaven can wait," Hokuto says, in casual response to Yellow as she backflips away from a claw-swipe. "Right now I wouldn't mind a bit of Hell, it's gotten kinda cold in here all of a sudden." She perches atop a counter to fend off a claw-strike, then waves cheerily to the yuki-onna.

"This guy's certainly enthusiastic," she adds as she lashes out at it with her peachwood blade, then ducks aside from another strike. She doesn't seem to be doing a lot of damage to it for now, but she isn't taking much in the way of hits, either. If nothing else, she's keeping it busy. Even as it keeps on growing.

"Someone want to tell this guy to chill out?" she asks, grinning, then loses her perch as a swipe tosses her across the room, to make a three-point landing skidding back across the slick tile floor. "Hey, c'mon!" she calls to it. "Yuki-onna, youma, chill out... it was funny! What's wrong with your sense of humor?"

Hakuomaru shoots Yellow a look that is by and large hidden by her ever-present mask, a mechanical looking thing this time. There's definitely some questions for later. She'll ignore that. There's a stream of shadow things pouring from a doorway and playing the meat grinder has never been her particularly favorite way of passing the time. With a shout of frustration, amplified by her mask, she kicks the creature closest to her to the gruond and spears it with her sword. Working her gloved fingers a few times, she then yanks the sword free and slams it hard into the ground, almost the whole blade. She was going to complain about collateral damage earlier, she's glad she didn't now as the floor splinters, then rips apart followed swiftly by the earth rushing from the ground to try and clear a path.

The blade is stuck in the ground for a moment. The struggle to pull it free taking her time. It's a distraction she doesn't need as she had been hoping to follow the hopefully cleared path to the source. Which is when she feels that freezing cold. A look over her shoulder and that mechanically distorted voice calls out, "Did you call in yet more help for something an idiot in a mask could usually pull off?"

The sword tearing free, she hefts it in a reversed grip and uses the handle as a bludgeon along with punches, kicks and elbows as she tries to brute force her way to the room, ignoring an evergrowing number of dings, dents, scratches and discomfort.

"Gull, got any ideas before we're buried and frozen?" An attempt at some planning. After it's too late to change her course. Which she'll probably kick herself over later. With her past self laughing at her. It's going to be an interesting night one way or the other.

"If I can block the room off, can we beat the biggun?" She announces, halfway to trying to chop her way inward.

Cure Gull gets blindsided by one of the weird black energy clones for a moment, as she turns around and gives it a high kiiiiick! "Hiya!" she goes. Then theres... brrrrr. That's a cold shoulder. "That isn't me. I'm not in ice form!" she calls out.

She turns to the door. She can only spare a moment. She looks back and forth between the newcomer and Yellow. "Wait what's supposed to be so funny?" she calls out.

"Hiii Haku! I dunno! I just came in here! I dunno the game Riventon's playing here today!"

She huffs. "I dunno. I could go Ballroom and try to have a snowball fight but I don't think that's gonna get me anywhere with this one." she says curtly. "Maybe I can force it somewhere else!" she calls out. "With a bigger wind push." she says as she gets clonked over the head by one of these clones and oh god that hurts. She flails around backwards with a poorly aimed punch.

It's only the boosted aura from the Catrtridge that prevents Riventon from getting his face scoured off, and even still the pure energy is disorienting - causing him to step blindly forward onto the rune Stahlritter had set down, from which chains erupt, confounding his issues. Dark energy spreads out from him in a storm. "You're just insignificant bugs - crawling up the leg and biting, but I'm the one stamping on your hive!"

And he's cold, but the cold never really bothered him anyways. Beats the summer. The youmas are having trouble, though. They needed closer direction. He should've brought a lieutenant. More showed up than he'd hoped. He needed more time to plan, time to think-

More Time. He wasn't Homura, but he'd done this once before. Two cartridges loaded and exploded with black energy inside of his gauntlet, the deafening sound of machinery filling the room, and then the Belkan words flickered on the gauntlet's center gem.

<ZEIT KLOPF> called out Axion as a small orb of grey energy appeared in his hands, then shattered. Ten seconds in one second is the imbalance Riventon's pirated powers gave him. Enough. He thought quick, changing the orders of the youma, before moving into the room - vaulting over the back of Hokuto's three point landing - and into the room with Stahritter. On the 9th second, Riventon held up his hand in front of Stahritter. On the tenth second, sparkling black gathered in that hand. And as time reasserted control..

<GLITZERN KREIS> the call comes out as right in the Knight's face, Riventon's little orb bursts, spraying the knight with energy that is somehow as black as night and blindingly bright, the sparkling flecks aiming to stick to armor and skin and detonate into bursts of poisonous energy.

"Get what we came for!" Riventon calls over his shoulder as the remaining half-assembled Eclipse Mook Squad gets to work - some of them are missing bits and peices and it's a bit touch and go thanks to Stahritter's shrapnel storm.

Outside the deposit room, Riventon's army of Faceless and the giant liquiform youma get the orders and suddenly all take a more defensive position, breaking away from their respective attacks to form a sort of sword-and-gun phalanx - attacking from range in the defensive cover while the large youma helps by swatting anyone who comes close.

Now, they're using tactics - and they're blocking the way to Riventon, and whatever shape Stahritter is in. And still the liquid of destroyed or defeated Faceless girls slithers along the floor towards the ball of danger to grow the large youma behind it. And now there's a very angry snow woman in the door opposite them. Which is a complication Riventon is actually happy for.

"I don't care who started it," whispers Mou to Yellow, the wind amplifying and mimicking her voice. The Prism Princess's response was ernest enough, but the Yuki-Onna doesn't hear it right now.

Hokuto's joke gets a blank stare from Mou Fubuki. One might think that she was offended, but the response is a bit different. Instead of whispering, she addresses Hokuto with a normal voice. "I'm too cool for puns, sorry. If you fall apart don't think I'll igloo you back together. You should keep your ice on the prize. This is snow laughing matter."

The wind blows in from behind Mou, whipping her hair forward. "Isn't all of this pointless? You covet, you steal, you resist, you defend, you fight, you hurt, you get hurt.... Isn't all of this pointless?"

"Wouldn't it all be better if you just didn't care?"

She spreads out her arms wide to either side, and the wind howls as it blows into the bank. "I've seen you carry on long enough. It's annoying. Maybe you should just take the girl's advice and..."

Suddenly, the half of the room closest to the door is covered in ice as the temperature drops to an unnatural cold.

"... chill out."

One must feel sorry for the bank staff, being hit both by Riventon's negative energy and Mou Fubuki's apathy-inducing heart-freezing frost at the same time. It's going to be a very non-productive day at work if they aren't healed or purified.

Mou Fubuki isn't really attacking anyone in particular, she's just using an apathy-inducing spell with a wide area of effect.

In the back, Stahlritter wrecks his way through the back and the Eclipse Goons--

And finds a hand sparkling with Dark Energy right before his helmet-covered face.

"Wha--"

There's barely a split second's worth of time for the Knight to fully register what happened, before the attack sprays across him. His body sent back by both the force and his own effort at falling back, with his gauntlet-bearing arms held up in a cross to try and shield himself. Even still, it shreds through the coat framing his armored body, and the last thing Riventon sees of him as he fades into a silhouette within the earlier-created dust cloud only intensified by the attack and fully fades out of sight is that of a *large* chunk of his helmet breaking, snapping off and shattering into a million little pieces.

Well. For about five seconds, anyhow.

"ORA!!!"

From just besides Riventon, a large, black-red gauntlet clenched into a fist launches through the concealment of the dust cloud towards his face -- Stahlritter is *fast*, that's for certain, and evidently smart enough to use the cloud as cover for re-advancing for a counter-attack from a different angle.

Not that he came out exactly *okay* from the faceful of dark energy.

When the dust scatters enough for him to be seen again, it reveals a Knight torn up and shattered. The coat in shreds and tatters, barely even existent anymore, and several pieces have been broken off from his breastplate, and the entire top left quarter of his helmet has effectively ceased to exist, revealing spiky brown hair, a fiery-green eye glaring at the science-mage and a forehead and brow caked in blood -- and likewise, the bare bicep of his left arm is running red.

Yellow invited trouble, now she's going to deal with it. "If you're so convinced that all of this is pointless, you give up on it first." She has lost Riventon in the mess, but she can't exactly afford to care where he went. She's got an immediate problem, and she's sending out a series of stars towards the bank staff. Smiling stars with nurse hats that attach themselves to the foreheads of the poor bank staff.

The stars should help heal the primary side effects of this chilling cold, and Yellow seems to be preoccupied with that. "Anyone who hurts innocent people is nothing more than a stupid bully." She insists, pointing her scepter at Mou Fubuki, "If you are angry at me, don't take it out on them. That's not strong, that's not standing up for yourself, that's picking on those weaker than you. Anyone can find someone weaker than them to bully."

Hokuto doesn't even notice the time-sped villain leaping over her, all her focus on the liquid darkness monster in front of her. And the yuki-onna's Suspiciously Specific Denial. Riddled with puns. Of course.

"What, can't handle the heat?" she snipes back, sending another ofuda flying. This one to settle on one wall of the bank. A second flies after it, slapping onto the wall a few feet away from the first. "Grace under fire is my thing, as it were."

She circles around a bit, keeping an eye on the big monster, and sends a third ofuda on its way to another point on the wall. "I mean, I'm just warming up, here."

Hakuomaru stops mid-swing. Which really means she stops with something petering out. Anything in the way probably isn't happy, but that seems to be the theme of the bank today. The encroaching cold is met from across the room with a blunt, "There's never a reason to just give up. Fight whatever it is you're going to fight until the end. Even if it's to BOTCH A BANK ROBBERY." She says the last part towards the suddenly exploding Riventon, that was an explosion right? She rubs her eyes and tries to get that blinding light cleared.

"I just wanted to get paid, you guys couldn't have done this later!" Her sword gets planted in the severely damaged floor, she then draws her second flintlock. There's two good targets as far as she can see. She chooses the giant shadow blob to fire a blazing dart of fire at the creature, then twists to put herself between the creatures and Gull who had been just a bit battered. Stepping forward, the sword follows behind her as she calls over her shoulder, "You could help, see how that feels. I'd prefer if you help us, but who am I to stop someone from having a dream? -Before it's attempted at least. I'm about to try and stomp on the exploding guy's dreams."

Cure Gull can /feel/ that one. She practically bathed in tubs of apathy when... yeah. No. Never again. Also that was Waaaaay too many Snow Puns in like a minute period? She's pretty sure there's some natural law against that. She kind of wants to call up Kami-sama and ask but she's currently dealing with this awful oppressive feeling and watching the magical girl clones all retreat to form a defense position. Nrg, she looks back to Hakumaru.

"Haku, go punch those things and--- Regardless, I would rather not be covered in liquid malice today." she mutters, but regardless, her attention turns away from Riventon and his dark energy abominations to the yuki-onna.

"HOW /DARE/ YOU OPRESS PEOPLE WITH SUCH FEELING." she says. "EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO FEEL WHAT THEY WANT. NOT. WHAT PEOPLE IMPRESS AGAINST THEM AGAINST THEIR WILL!" she yells.

"Happiness charging, filled with HOPE!...." she calls out as she spreads her arms outwards, henshining again into a different form. Angelic in style, with long feathery wings. A longer dress. "...Super Happiness Gull!"

This is when those wings fan forward- and her own windy breeze blows out. But it's warm. And filled with hope.

The same hope she was given by everyone on that night when the feathers fell. The same when she help talked down a rouge AI in a sun creating super weapon. The same when she went to the North Pole with everyone else. The same hope that gave Hannah-chan her powers back.

She's trying to counteract this specific issue right now, rather than deal with the big grim monster.

Back in the Deposit Room, Riventon's smug face is almost literally broken by Stahritters' fist - it's a slow turn away that results in the fist glancing off his upper shoulder and causing an actual ripple effect on his Barrier Jacket henshin before Riventon doubles back.

There's an expletive or two before he finds his footing. "Good hit." he begrudges. "Reminds me of Miss White. Can't wait to catch you in better circumstances." Then, no matter how hard he tries not to, his hand comes up to cover the other shoulder as he grimaces. Maybe a bad bruise, maybe a fracture. Thank the Crone for Barrier Jackets, or it might be powder instead.

"But I'm busy now so why don't you just go away before I get more angry than I am." But Riventon was just stalling - one of the goons pulls something out of a deposit box - a gemstone that looks like a blue tear with purple lightning coursing through it, and obviously magical. Riventon steps back out of himself - like a snake shedding it's skin, leaving a sticky dark energy tar version of himself behind that tries to attack Stahritter and literally get him stuck in so Riventon can check the find.

Back in the main room:

The ice is cold and slick with frozen and black energy, but Super Happiness Gull is most assuredly -a thing- and it's causing the bigger youma to shirk back and shrink, finally purging some of the latent dark energy from the room. The girls are more put together but keep marching backwards while they rain down light projectile fire of dark energy bolts at the others.

Hakuomaru's strike rings true and brings the giant monster down to one knee, between it and the hope flooding the room.

"Don't get so hot under the collar. You wouldn't want to have a meltdown."

To Hakumaru, Taiko responds, "Help you? No thanks."

Mou's responses to Hokuto and Hakumaru is curt, but Yellow gets her attention again. The yuki-onna doesn't like the way Yellow's stars are interfering with her blizzard, and Cure Gull really isn't helping matters. The nice thing about fighting an apathy-based creature is that it's not that hard to want something more than them, but the vengeful curse in Mou Fubuki's blood is strong and stubborn.

"All I'm trying to do is open these people's eyes to the truth. Everyone claims to care, everyone pretends to care, and everyone pressures everyone else into this pretense... but it's all a lie. A lie you tell yourselves because you're too afraid to face the truth: none of you really care about anything, or anyone. You act like I'm the one impressing my feelings on others, but that's all you ever do!"

Mou Fubuki's coldhearted wind fights back hard against Gull and Yellow. She's being stubborn on this one particular point, but the moment she realizes just how hard she's straining she just... stops.

Which has a noticable backlash, with Gull's Hope washing over her suddenly. She clutches her hand over her heart, curled over as she closes her eyes. There's a glowing where her heart should be, and that glow seems painful to the yuki-onna, but it doesn't last. "No. I won't make that mistake again," she mutters, and for once the wind doesn't carry her whisper.

Mou glides closer to Prism Princess Yellow as she recovers, a trail of ice in her wake. Technically this leaves the front doors unguarded against anyone who has a pair of skates, but the snow woman's attention is focused purely on the much younger magical girl.

"What are you after, with all of this? A pat on the head? A gold star? Don't you see how dumb this is? I'm not a bully. I am the truth."

She raises her hands over her head, and the ceiling of the bank is covered in frost and swirling wind centered above Yellow's head. "... but as for your claim that anyone can find someone weaker than them, well... Yes. We can." Icicles form on the ceiling, razor sharp as always, and begin to fall down towards Yellow, pelting the ground (and if Mou gets her way, the Prism Princess herself) with shattering shards of ice.

"And it's the prerogative of the bully to take out her problems upon the weak."

Riventon's faceless girls are shooting around. Mou isn't sure if they're going to shoot her or not, but she raises up a wall if ice between herself and them regardless. It should hold off their bullets, at the very least, unless they start focusing on her directly.

"I'm not doing this for any reward, I'm doing this because bullies like you make me angry. And when I get angry, I take it to the source of my anger." Yellow answers Mou Fubuki as she attempts to dodge the icicles, but still gets hit by a handful, cold painful and unpleasant. However, she perseveres "But if a gold star would make you happie...

She points her scepter towards the snow woman, and she creates a big five pointed star that floats towards Mou Fubuki, a beam of yellow pushes more energy into it, making it grow and grow. "Prism Aegis Power! Yellow Chroma Starburst!" She calls out, right as that big star starts to become so bloated as to lose its shape. It huffs and it puffs and then it explodes, sending purifying yellow stars and beams of colour energy in every direction, but proximity means that if the Snow Woman isn't careful she may find herself right at the center of that purifying blast.

"Oh, come on now," Hokuto chides the snow woman as she tosses out another ofuda. Anyone familiar with the way she fights might recognize the array she's setting up, some sort of hexagram by the look of things. "Really, you're just completely full of it. You're lucky I've got bigger problems right now."

Literally true, given the size of the liquid-hate-monster she's currently fighting. Or at least wildly dodging. Gull's hope-aura washing over her brings out a big grin. "Try not contradicting yourself," she suggests as she sets the fifth ofuda in place, and bats aside a strike with her sword. "First you say you're not a bully, then you claim the 'prerogatives' of one?"

After that, she has to focus on kiting the monster a bit more, delaying any more snapy rejoinders - and the final ofuda placement - while she ducks and weaves away from the big lug. Again she's hurled across the room, this time crashing through a teller's station to pick herself up from that.

Eventually, though, she's ready to complete the hexagram, and lines of light connect between the ofuda she placed into a massive Seal of Solomon, cris-crossing the bank with lambent light and adding a massive boost to Yellow's purifying blast.

Stahlritter stumbles back one step's worth after the punch has gone through. He's taking the opportunity provided by Riventon's own recoiling to just... take several panting breaths to recollect himself. Even now, the aftereffects of being blasted face-first by what amounts to a bazooka of Dark Energy are likely eating up at him. It's a testament to his physical toughness and sheer stubornness that he remains standing still.

"Funny," the booming voice of the Knight echoes from beneath what remains of his helmet, while a hand is brought up to wipe some blood off of his brow. "I smacked Miss White with a crane once."

The instant he's said that, his visible eye widens out in focus, and his armored foot stomps down to carry him forwards with a determined, rumbling roar.

...An advance that's stopped by... Riventon doubling himself?! He's fast-thinking enough to realize that this is a *terrible* arrangement, but his wounded body doesn't act quite in tandem with the speed of his thought, and despite his effort to avoid the thing, he ends up with his left arm caught within the tar-statue of liquid malice.

Caught, his gaze flicks back and forth rapidly between the Copy-Riventon, the actual Riventon and the gemstone he's going for.

And he makes an extreme decision.

His foot extends out, to catch and push at a piece of rubble left on the floor, shoving it into his other foot to ease it on top of the first, to let him kick it upwards. Up into the air, where he catches it into his free hand, hard enough to crush it into several pieces within the gauntlet's grasp.

And toss them into the Tar-Riventon.

<SPANNSTUCK>

The cracked-off pieces of cement and dry wall and what else, accelerated and enhanced by the runic Belkan magic explode out and shred through the mass of Dark Energy, destroying it, in turn.

The unfortunate part of this is that his left arm, having still been stuck inside, gets fully pelted by the force of his own attack, too.

"Ghhhhh--! ....Rrrrhhh!"

With the tar-construct fully destroyed, the Knight stomps his foot down once more, and spins himself around to facing the direction of Riventon and the Goon holding the gem, with his severely injured left arm limply swinging down at his side. And all at the same time, the gauntlets adorning his hands and forearms shift with a flash of light, reduced to gloves covering only his hands-- but with chains wrapped in spirals along the whole lengths of his arms.

He doesn't know what Riventon is going to do with that magical artifact, or even what it is. But having heard just the telltales of this Device User before him, he knows it can't be anything good. And so...

"I won't let you--!"

His still-functioning hand lifts up, pointing towards Riventon, with a red-glowing chain shooting out. But it doesn't lash out at Riventon, no. Instead, it goes right past him, to try and capture and bring over the gemstone. If nothing else, he's fighting defiantly to the very last bit.

Hakuomaru hefts her sword one handed, her hand letting the flintlock fall as she drags her fingers along the flat of her blade. A stone sheath encasing the thing, it begins to glow through the cracks, a hint at the heat contained within. "Bullies? You're no bully, you weren't bullied here either. Or you've picked the entirely wrong side to try and freeze. You won't help? That's fine." She swings her sword back, arcs it overhead and smashes it into the winded creature, "Some of us protect others. It's what we do." She says that last part calmly, sword buried into a creature hopefully as the sword's about to explode outward, a blast of anti-monster goodness.

She's also starting to notice she's riddled with scrapes, bruises, a few pieces of shrapnell and good portions of her armor has stripped away. There's almost a shrug.

"Gull, keep it up, I'll keep you safe." There's a pause, then she calls out, "Are you guys out there okay too?" Realizing she's been a touch tunnel-visioned this time around.

Cure Gull can see that thing recoil upon her transformation. Yeah, that's right buddy, be scared, maybe you're next to get a face full of hope. Still, Mou Fubuki eventually relents. She'll still let that wind fly around. Handle the linger feelings. The lingering darkness from that /thing/.

She frowns a little at Fubuki, but it's in that sad way, rather than a mad way. How can someone think like that?... even Riventon is kind of... 'better future' just 'his own version' of it.

She huffs, she is keeping it up. "I am keeping it up. But I can't keep it up forever so you guys need to move while you can!" she says with wide eyes.

Super Happiness form burns bright, but usually also fast. It's probably only lasting as long as it has right now because she isn't channeling direct attacks and 'draining the power meter as fast' so to speak.

In the Lobby: The Faceless girls are substantially weaker seeming in the face of Super Happiness Gull, just like their youma overlord - and so is the 'big one', even though it successfully puts Hokuto through the teller station, it's too slow to recover in time for Hakuomaru, who makes contact with it over the attempted protestations of the Faceless.

In a brilliant display of magical skill the larger monster detonates, vaporizing the recombinant liquid this time rather than leaving it about the room. The girls follow thier last protocol - and break, running haphazardly into the room they came out of, escaping out.

In the Saftey Deposit Room: "She probably enjoyed it." Riventon says to the crane remark. And then moments later, Riventon casually - and he realizes too casually - dodges the chains that aren't attacking him, and reaches out. Not for the crystal, but for the chains themselves, grasping them in his gauntleted hand where they grind to a halt, maybe a chainlink away from the crystal.

"Maybe I'll let you duel me for the chance to earn it back, but only when I'm sure you'll be able to put something of equal value on your side of the table." Riventon's device clicked as the internal cylinder rotated and another cartridge loaded - just as the chain began to pull him towards Stahritter!

Riventon began to channel energy through the chain just as the chain pulled up and Stahlritter headbutted him - probably putting them both down. But there was still the roboyouma, who were busy putting the gem into a case, and suddenly push thier way out of the room, making an escape as well - with the gem itself, and assorted bundles of cash and bearer bonds that may or may not be in burlap sacks with yen signs on them.

That vampire girl she met a year or two back, she tried to warn Mou. Tried to warn her about the magical forces in the area, and those who would try to oppose her. It's not that Mou failed to heed those warnings, but... she's spent so long keeping a low profile and remaining unopposed that this is the first time it's been a real issue for her.

Now Mou gets to feel the full force of what Lacrima was talking about way back when.

Mou is not a fast-moving creature, generally. She moves, no pun intended, at a glacier's pace. Slow but powerful, that's this particular snow woman. So when an oversized, overstuffed star comes her way, she doesn't really have the option of dodging, and with Hokuto giving it a boost she's pretty sure that no barrier in her arsenal would be enough to cancel that out. Being a person bearing a centuries old generational curse means that purifying magic... doesn't purify her easily, but is instead incredibly... intense.

Mou Fubuki shrieks. The wind shrieks with her. More glass windows shatter, the cold wind blows inward. She glares, fuming, at Prism Princess Yellow... but as her eyes scan the room she realizes that she'd be very outnumbered if she escalated this, and she can't rely upon labcoat guy sticking around because bank robbers tend to leave once they get what they want.

The yuki-onna frowns at the princess, a cold glare in her eyes. "Hmph. Fine. Be that way. If you love your illusions so much, keep them."

Her ice cold eyes slide towards the entrance of the bank. It's covered in ice, and ice just so happens to be Mou Fubuki's element. A magical wind blows around her, but it's not blowing cold onto the magical defenders. It's just blowing Mou Fubuki across the ice and towards the way out.

This makes it the second time she's fled this building today. She won't be paying a third visit.

"Gh--!" Stahlritter grunts out in frustration when Riventon grabs his chain, watching the gauntlets on the other Mage's hands set up for another attack... but no, he can still turn this around.

He still has control of the chain, afterall.

Rapidly, the mana-formed chain retracts back to his glove, with enough force of pull to yank Riventon himself along for the ride with the added strength from Stahlritter's own arm pulling back. And once more, he stomps forward, but this time, with his head reared back.

"UuuuuuuooooOOOOO!!!!"

And forward his whole body swings, smashing his partially-helmeted forehead down into Riventon's face with enough force that the sound of skull and metal bashing together might even echo all the way back to the main lobby.

But, be it from his already-accumulated injuries or the expenditure of the channeled energy on Riventon's part, he finds himself knocked back after the impact, too. And slumping to the ground with a heavy *thud* of six feet of muscle and armor slamming into the floor.

He's still barely conscious enough to see the robo-youma secure the diamond, and run with other assorted loot.

"St-..." Wriggling about on the floor, he turns to try and turn after them, with his remaining good arm pressing the forearm of it into the floor in an effort to push himself up. "Get... u-..."

He doesn't get very far with that. He slumps back down again after a few secnds of shaking. And still, desperately, futilely, he extends his right hand outwards from his body, trying to drag himself with it in a worthless, one-armed crawl. "M...ove..."

Hakuomaru stomps her foot down, a mini-pillar of earth launching the flintlock at her where she deftly catches it and holsters it. Then she looks down at herself. Then she looks around. Then back down at herself. "I think we've made a mess of things." Is about all she can offer.

She then stops, tenses and looks around. "Where's the rest?" She takes a step like she's about to chase after them, then realizes she's got a room full of half-frozen and covered in monster-goo people, also goo covered friends. The sword is flipped back onto her back and she begins to put her foot down, then raise her hand, trying to break the floor up to hopefully break the ice up so that people can safely make their way out. Or at the least they can actually make their way out. People first, bad guy second. You can always chase them down later, they can't help but show off after all!

Cure Gull has to stop, but that's okay because the bad guys are running and she takes the moment to touch down and let the henshin fades. "Ohhhhkay." she says tiredly. "That's longer than I'm usually in that." she says as she wavers. "Whew. Okay."

"Where did they run to? and secondly, I need to contact Kami-sama about the rules of nature and lots of ice puns in like a minute of time. Something about a... Bat and Robin Rule?" she says confusedly.

"Never matter." she says.

"I dunno what that ice girl was about but Riventon probably wanted money and something right did anyone see it!?" she asks flailing.

The battle in the back room seems to have gone mostly unnoticed by those fighting out in the lobby, but the destruction of the mega-monster and the flight of the smaller ones leaves things quiet there for now. Especially with snow-girl leaving as well.

"Enh, it's not so much illusions as it is reality, m'dear. You think you're the first one to decide they've 'seen through the veil'? Bah." She prepares another ofuda, charging it in her left hand as she holds the gleaming wooden blade in her right, but as the woman doesn't seem to be attacking again, she holds her fire.

"I'm sure we'll meet again. Maybe by that time you'll have learned how to have fun." She grins and flicks the ofuda into the air, where it flits over to one of the goo-covered bank patrons and washes them down with more positive energy.

Fight's over,. time for the cleanup. "I don't know," she offers to Gull. "I didn't see him leave, did you?"

The bank slowly clears of negative energy - and Riventon only gets up before his direct opponent due to cheating, as the last two Cartridges in his gauntlet slam into place, giving him the infusion of energy he needs to stagger to... well, one knee.

"You must have rocks in your head." he groaned, rubbing his own forehead. "Do you not even think about the sort of damage you could do to your brain?" Because that's the important thing here, not the bank robbery or the civilians or the property destruction, but the danger posed to his grey matter.

But he knows he's alone, now, with everyone else having made a hasty getaway, and he's not even in shape to really pressure Stahlritter anymore, much less the other mahou who are out there - he could recognize Gull's henshin energy through the wall and there were so many others. So he just leans forward and falls - through the floor, into the Dusk Zone where presumably he intends to sleep in a tree or something, as the rip between worlds closes behind him.

And with the Dark Energy gone, it won't be long for the mahous to make their escape before the police show up and everyone tries to make sense of it all...

Despite his situation, Stahlritter can't help but snort at Riventon's words, managing to mutter out, "...Steel..." in apparent correction to 'rocks'.

The next groan is one of equal amounts of frustration and pain, when he realizes Riventon's proceeded to exit stage left. Once more, he makes an effort to push himself up, but only ends up rolling himself towards the nearest wall.

"Krieg... text message... Haruna... tell her... about the minions... with the stone..."

<<WHAT ABOUT YOU?>>

"Nevermind... that... just... tell her..." With great effort, he manages to bring his arm up to leaning against the wall, and slowly, all the while every cell in his body screams in pain - with his absolutely demomlished arm and the Dark Energy having shredded through his body - he finally brings himself up to a knee and supporting his body against the wall.

Just then, a BEEP! of a text message received comes up from Cure Gull. Reading as follows: